In This Issue

News

Motorola revives Razr branding for new folding smartphone

Remember the RAZR mobile phone from the mid-2000s? Motorola (now owned by Lenovo) has exhumed its flip phone design and added a flexible OLED to create a Razr clam-shell smartphone running Android. Specs wise it's very mediocre (Snapdragon 710 SoC, average camera), but the real genius is that the Razr's unique hinge system avoids the unsightly crease in the middle of the flexible OLED screen as seen on other folding phones. Go look at this video of the hinge in action. Very nifty. Motorola even added a "retro Razr" mode that's a custom Android skin that makes the phone look like the old school Razr! The new Razr will go on sale Jan 9th in the USA (not sure about Australia) for the whopping price of US$1499 - more than the 512GB iPhone 11 Pro Max.

PayPal cuts off Pornhub performers from getting paid without notice

PayPal has abruptly decided it won't support payments to Pornhub performers, effective immediately. It's a long standing policy of PayPal not to process payments related to "adult content", so really, this is Pornhub’s fault for even allowing PayPal as an option. They should have known PayPal would eventually pull the rug out from Pornhub creators, leaving them in a shitty position. Many of those performers rely on these payments for rent, food and other necessities and now getting that money they planned on has additional hurdles. Careless nerds once again not thinking through the consequences of their decisions. Don't even get me started on payment processors like PayPal avoiding certain types of transactions.

Telstra wants government run 5G safety campaign & eSafety Commissioner reckons online porn ID checking is a dumb idea

Some interesting submissions to government committees have been made public lately. First up, Telstra wants the government to do something about all the 5G misinformation going around unchecked, ideally a "broad-based government led communications campaign to educate the public about the independent global and peer-reviewed research on the safety of 5G". If Telstra & Optus pay for it I'm sure the government will do it. The other submission comes from the eSafety Commissioner, saying that the Home Affairs thought bubble of an ID check before accessing internet porn "will certainly not prepare children to interpret and understand online pornography once they reach adulthood". Let's see if the government listens to their own experts on child internet safety.

Not News

The internet isn’t the utopia we thought it would be - now what do we do with it?

The New York Times Magazine has a wonderful series of articles about the future of the internet. Like most of us, they've realised the internet didn't turn out to as those of us lingering around in the late 90s and early 2000s thought it would. "After decades of imagining it as a utopia, and then a few years of seeing it as a dystopia — we might finally begin to see it for what it is, which is a set of powerful technologies in the midst of some serious flux". Perfect to munch on over the weekend. The articles are worth a click just for the wacky web design. I thought something was fucked with the way Firefox was rendering the page, but it looks weird in Safari too.

Bargains

🎶 The Door - Silverchair

😁 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Join us on Slack and chat with other Sizzle subscribers.

The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.​